Potential Entity 2: The Retrieval
by Flatlander Jr
Summary: Sequel/Companion Story to “The Entity of Seven.” If Rupert can fulfill his goal and get out of this alternate world safely, Buffy and the others will never learn from him the lengths he is determined to go, even now.
1. Part One

THE RETRIEVAL

DANIELLE FRANCES DUCREST

Spoilers and Timing: Takes place four months after the conclusion of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ with spoilers for "Chosen," "Never Leave Me" and other episodes of season seven. Season Eight in comic form? What Season Eight in comic form? There's no such thing, I tell you (btw, I love that they're doing a crossover with Fray). This story breaks away from _Angel_ canon after season four. This is for one simple reason: when I wrote "The Entity of Seven," I hadn't seen season five of _Angel_. Ergo, there is a reference in this story to a character who died in canon. It's the kind of continuity problem only possible in fanfic. I have embraced it.

Author's Note: As an American, I have tried my best to convert all pertinent phrases, grammar usage and words to Brit-speak in the scenes from Giles' POV. If you notice anything amiss, please let me know by e-mail or through a review.

Author's Note #2: This is a sequel/companion story to "The Entity of Seven" because Xander appears in this story as a Potential Entity. However, this is a Giles story. Sorry, XanderZone readers and all other Xander fans (though if I'm going to apologize to all Xander fans, then I include myself in that apology, and that doesn't make much sense…). He does play a significant part.

Author's Note #3: WARNING! This note contains spoilers for the story. You have been warned. This story uses an idea I had I-don't-know-how-long-ago-though-it's-been-a-while. I couldn't think of a good way of incorporating the Council-gets-sent-into-alternate-universe-when-it-exploded plot point into a story until now.

Summary: Sequel/Companion Story to "The Entity of Seven." The Watcher's Council was not sufficiently protected against modern weaponry, a situation Caleb took advantage of when he detonated the bomb at Headquarters in London. Other protection spells, however, ensured that, the moment after the bomb went off, Headquarters was sent into an alternate dimension, where it was reconstructed. There it has waited to be retrieved by someone still on Earth. That person is Rupert Giles, a man capable of doing terrible things, all of which he believed were necessary. Despite all they know he has done, Buffy, Willow and Xander still do not know the full extent of his capabilities. If Rupert has any say, if he can fulfill his goal and get out of this alternate world safely, then they will never learn from him the lengths he is determined to go, even now.

-----

Hubris was a simple word. Rupert Giles had thought this before, and he would think of this many more times until he had passed on. It only abstractedly represented a complex idea. Nevertheless, it was not a word to be used lightly.

Rupert was not so naïve to believe he was above hubris. He did like to think, however, that his hubris had never been as terrible as those harbored by his colleagues, now deceased. He was fooling himself. Once upon a time, a young man had shared the opinions and ideals of the Giles family and had believed, wholeheartedly, that the Watchers' Council was good, and just, and the mightiest of them all.

Near the end, the Watchers had lived comfortable, lazy lives. They claimed to fight on the side of good, but ninety-seven percent of their staff rarely left Headquarters, a building nestled safely in one of the better parts of London. They would send young members, all proud to do their duty, into the field. Some of them came back in coffins. Others returned in tears and in shame. Those who found ways to survive in the world, and so few of them did, would send reports back to Headquarters but would rarely set foot inside the building.

The world was overwrought with monsters, those ninety-seven percent would say amongst themselves. The Slayer would fight them, and she would win. If she didn't, there would always be another. We need not involve ourselves directly. Our expertise would be better served here, where we could relay any necessary information she and her Watcher needed.

They would bury themselves further into their chronicles and their armories and personal research about demons defeated centuries ago, and they would leave the world to deal with the rest.

Rupert liked to think these things on those days and those nights when he was in a particularly fowl mood. But then the guilt would set in, if there were no distractions to stop him, and he would remember the good times. There seemed to be so many of them, made with his classmates at the Academy, or even earlier, while he was growing up in a proud family of retired and active Watchers.

It didn't matter, though, did it? Not anymore. His anger with them would never be satisfied. He'd wanted to knock some sense into every one of them with his fists if needed. He'd hated them, but he hadn't wanted them dead.

It hadn't been demons or sorcerers or gods that had brought about the fall of the Council of Watchers. It had been a human armed with a bomb. Granted, the human in question had been in league with the First Evil, but he'd operated alone as he'd snuck into Council Headquarters and planted the bomb. It was the contingency for which the Council hadn't planned. Of course they hadn't prepared for it. Bombs were a concern for other organizations with normal, human enemies. The Council's enemies fought their battles with bows and arrows, swords and clubs, spells and the occasional trebuchet or flying sailing craft. As far as Rupert could determine, contingencies against modern weaponry hadn't entered their minds.

Though when he'd thought it over, and he had thought it over many times, he wondered if he would have made plans for such an occasion. In any case, it was too late for his former colleagues. The new Council was his concern now.

Xander had phased them from Cleveland into Canterbury, the closest he could manage to get to London. They'd taken the train from there. London was as busy as it ever was. He'd never liked London traffic. Give him the smaller populations of Bath or Sunnydale any day. It was a shame that, when they phased back to the States when this was done with, he wouldn't be landing in a small town. Cleveland wasn't as awful as London, at least.

In Sunnydale an hour and a half's walk would transport a person from one side of town to the other. If this walk took place during the day, one would pass many cars, a crowd or two in the downtown area and fewer people out and about elsewhere in town. That would be all. In London, it was a stupid idea to walk across crowded pavement for an hour and a half; it was a better idea to take the Tube from the hotel, which was a hassle in itself, and then walk ten minutes from the closest Tube station to their destination. Even then, those ten minutes were occupied stopping at kerbs for traffic and weaving around stalls selling souvenirs of Big Ben or the London Eye and around queues of people before food vendors.

"You know," said Xander, as they picked their way down the pavement, "this is my first trip to good old England. Without phasing to another time, I mean. And so far, I have spoken to or heard a whole bunch of Americans, an Italian guy who knew a little bit of English and a couple of French girls. Where are all the British people?"

"Not here," Giles said simply, as they stopped at another street corner. A throng of people filled the space behind and on either side of them, all waiting for the light to turn green. "This is one of the tourist sections of town. It's along the walk to the Eye."

He wondered how large Sunnydale would have become if its population hadn't been constantly diminished by the appetites of vampires.

Xander gave him a look. "What, you're telling me Watcher Headquarters was in the tourist part of town?" He appeared to be trying to stifle a smile without much success.

Rupert rolled his eyes. "It was near one of them, yes. There are so many areas of London constantly populated by tourists, it's bloody hard to avoid them."

Xander openly grinned. "What's the matter, G-Man? Don't like all those foreigners, buying telephone booth coin banks, snapping pictures and oohing and aahing over the silliest things?"

He didn't deign to answer.

The light turned green, and the throng moved across the street. Some people stared as Rupert and Xander passed by. Their gazes snapped to the eye patch over Xander's right eye socket. Rupert didn't often go around Cleveland with the younger man, and he wondered how Xander dealt with the public scrutiny.

Xander didn't appear to have noticed, or he was ignoring the stares. The buildings around them occupied his attention. The young American had been to England before but not to London, as far as Rupert knew. Rupert wasn't sure how much time Xander had spent in large metropolitan areas before they'd moved to Cleveland. Xander certainly seemed to be enjoying himself here in London, and it was Rupert's turn to conceal a grin at the younger man's attempts to turn his head in every direction possible.

London was a conglomeration of all sorts of styles. A number of them were modern, built within the past sixty years. As for the rest of the buildings, the ground floors had been gutted and modernized, while the facades of the upper floors hadn't been altered since their construction in previous centuries. It was different from anything Rupert had seen in the States.

A few streets later, they turned right onto a narrow, unpopulated street. Rupert breathed a sigh of relief. Five story buildings to either side formed walls six meters apart. There was enough room for one lane of traffic, but no cars were to be seen.

"It's not much further," he said.

Xander stopped after a few paces and let out a strange sound, something between a groan and a grunt. Rupert turned to him as Xander rubbed his forehead. "Yeah, I can feel it. Ow."

Rupert studied his grimace and tightly shut eyes. "What do you sense?"

With another grimace, Xander straightened and opened his eyes. He seemed to be acclimating himself to whatever sensation he was feeling, and that was reassuring. The last thing Rupert wanted was to see the young man harmed, not over something like this.

"Just that there's something wrong." Xander frowned. "It's a little like when I'm phasing, except that always feels right, like I should be doing it. This feels like…like something else tried to phase, but they weren't supposed to, like it was against the rules. Does that make sense?"

"Um…not really, no." It gave Rupert an inkling, but it wasn't the most straightforward explanation he'd ever heard. Xander often had trouble describing the part of himself that made him the most unique.

Xander gave him an apologetic smile, shrugged and nodded toward the far end of the street. "Let's go."

The street soon ended at another. They turned right, then left and emerged onto a wider street. It could have allowed two lanes of traffic, but so many cars were parked along the kerb that only one lane could pass between them. Men and women in suits passed by, heading to and from the many non-commercial businesses that lined the street.

The street turned sharply to the left, forming a ninety degree angle. At the turn was an empty pit between buildings. Seven meters deep, the L-shaped pit was large enough to be a dug foundation of a building. Water pipes emerged from the dirt walls, but the lot had been empty for some time.

The empty space above the pit afforded Rupert and Xander an excellent view of one of the many bridges that crossed the Thames and the heavy traffic that crossed the bridge.

They paused beside one of the building that stood adjacent to the pit. Xander grabbed Rupert's shoulder as he swayed. "That's it." He swallowed and nodded at the empty lot. "That's where Watcher HQ used to be."

It wasn't a question. Rupert didn't bother confirming it. The International Headquarters of the Watchers' Council had stood proudly at this spot for just under a millennia. If Rupert and Xander had anything to do with it, the headquarters would return. That was why they had come.

"Are you all right?" the Watcher asked.

Xander wiped sweat from his forehead. "I'll deal. What exactly are we looking for? It doesn't look like there's anything there."

"No." Rupert watched the Potential Entity closely. "But something is there, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Xander squirmed. "Okay, now it really, really itches. I think I preferred the disorientation and wanting-to-puke feelings from a few seconds ago."

Rupert shivered. Goosebumps covered his arms. "It's not just you, apparently."

A woman across the street walked parallel to the empty lot. She rubbed her arms and quickened her pace.

Xander and Rupert left the protective building facades to their right and strode onto the pavement alongside the pit. There was nothing there, not physically. There was no rainwater, though he couldn't see any drains. No weeds grew from the dirt, and there were no bird droppings and no birds. The oddest detail of all was a lack of signs of an explosion. It had been nearly a year since the bomb detonated, but even if the pit had been cleared of debris, the buildings to either side should have had some indications of damage or repair.

Rupert felt another shiver. Xander began to shake. "G-Giles-I-" His eye rolled into the back of his head.

"Xander!" Rupert grabbed his arms and shook him. Xander's eye snapped open, but it was unfocused. Rupert cursed, draped Xander's arm over his shoulders and half-dragged, half-led the younger man to the other side of the street.

Xander gasped. He closed his eye and held on tightly to Rupert as he coughed. "Shit. I think I should stay over here, yeah?"

"Quite."

Xander let go, put his hands on his knees and took deep breaths. "Something's definitely there. Do you really think it's the Council building?"

"With any luck."

It was no wonder he hadn't been able to phase the two of them here directly from Cleveland as they'd originally tried to do, if this was the reaction he experienced by being so close to the source.

"Run that by me again." Xander took one more deep breath and straightened. He was looking decidedly pale. "You said that the Council building was chock full of protective spells, and that when it went kablooey-"

Rupert winced.

"-one of the protective spells activated some sort of fail-safe…or…something and sent the building into a pocket dimension?"

Rupert sighed. He'd always hoped that, if he repeated himself often enough, his American friends would assimilate one of his explanations. He gave it another attempt. "The Council was not prepared for an attack by technological means, but they had prepared a spell that would be enabled if the building was destroyed or otherwise irreparably ruined. It would freeze time for the building and anyone and anything inside it. Then it would deposit the building in a pocket dimension, where any repairs would be made magically to the structure. All harmed persons sent to the pocket dimension would also be healed, no matter the extent of their injuries. The building would be kept safe in the pocket dimension until it could be retrieved."

"So…the building's intact? And the Council's still alive?" Xander frowned. "I thought you said that…"

"They aren't." Rupert looked away. "I was unaware of the spell until recently, when Frederick informed me of some research he'd done into spells utilized for the Council's protection." Frederick Benton was one of the few field Watchers who hadn't been at Headquarters when it was destroyed. There were only four of the original Council left, including Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, newly reinstated and on standby status. "The spell would…preserve all persons inside the pocket dimension for a period of **four weeks/three weeks**." He closed his eyes. "If the building is retrieved in that time, the people would be retrieved with it. If the building is retrieved after that period, only the building would return from the pocket dimension."

"So we've got an empty building to retrieve filled of useful spell stuff and books and weapons, not to mention Watcher files, chronicles and, hopefully, bank account information. I got that part right, right?"

"Yes." Rupert glanced up at the sky. It was mid-morning, and it was a day of good weather. He wondered how long that would last. "If we perform the retrieval ritual properly, then yes."

"Always with the if." Xander gave him a weak smile. "Let's do it, then, before I throw up."

He sighed. "Yes, well, that is where the difficulty lies."

He wished the ritual didn't require so much daylight. It would have been preferable to return here at night, when there would be no possibility of onlookers. That was another reason he'd miss Sunnydale; as much it had frustrated him that the town's citizens were so consistently blind to the obvious, it was at times welcome. Londoners, he was sure, would be far too curious. There was no helping it.

He turned back to Xander and realised the younger man was looking at him. No humour could be found in Xander's expression. "Spit it out already, Giles. Where's the difficulty and how do we get around it?"

Xander looked tired and far too old. Rupert knew that he, too, looked far older than his forty-nine years. He wondered how much longer it would be until Xander began to go gray. It could happen anytime.

They needed a break. In the four months since the collapse of Sunnydale, they hadn't had one. Perhaps, after they retrieved Headquarters, Rupert could go on a short holiday to Bath to see his sister and her children. He would like that, if it proved to be possible.

That was assuming he could make this work. He couldn't let his own hubris interfere today. The longer the building was in the pocket dimension, the harder it would be to retrieve, and it had been **ten months **already.

"The difficulty lies in the fact that I will need your help. You, specifically, as a Potential Entity." Rupert cleaned his glasses. "And, judging from what has just occurred, it's going to be painful for you and possibly for me as well, due to the side effects I could experience."

"While I'll get the up-front effects?" Xander stared across the street and shook his head. "I don't know, Giles. Just being over here feels like Gene Kelley got out his tap shoes and decided to perform a two-hour musical in my head."

Rupert grimaced and glanced at his watch. "We'll get something to eat." They would need the energy, and Xander could use the chance to recover before starting anew.

"Better call Buffy, too, for a progress update," Xander said.

Rupert couldn't fault his friend's paranoia. Neither of them had been so far away from 'home base,' as Xander put it, since they had settled in Cleveland. He nodded in agreement. "We can also stop at a magic store I know. Perhaps it will have something we can use as protection. If we can't find anything suitable, we'll have to reconsider this venture at a later time." He needed Xander for this, but if Xander became sick every time they came near the site, they would make little to no progess.

Xander shook his head. "We really need all the stuff in the old headquarters. Not to mention an already firmly established base of operations for the Watcher's Council." Xander rubbed his hands up and down his arms. "And the sooner we get them, the better."

They didn't return to the throng of tourists, but instead went in another direction, to a place a street away from the magic shop. A pizza restaurant Rupert remembered was still there. It was a good distraction for Xander, who ordered the largest pizza on the menu and ate three-quarters of it at an outside table.

Rupert quirked a smile. "Feeling better?"

Xander gave him a quick, distracted smile and returned to his observation of the street around them. "Anya would have loved it here. Especially all the capitalism going on."

Rupert started. After a moment, his smile returned, this one more fond. "Yes. She would. Though it is likely she had been here before."

Xander nodded. After a moment, he smirked at Rupert. "You know, British people aren't as stuffy as I'd thought they'd be. All those years of seeing you in tweed had led me to believe it was the height of fashion over here."

Rupert rolled his eyes. "It's wonderful that you've finally been exposed to reality after only seven years in my association."

It was an hour later when they finally returned to the street. Rupert carried a coiled-up rope over his shoulder. Less people were about outside, which was favourable. Just as many cars traveled along the bridge beyond the gap where Headquarters used to be.

Xander scratched his arms until they were covered in red streaks. He draped a drawstring bag of herbs around his neck and breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good stuff," he said. "We should go back and ask for the recipe."

Rupert, who had been shivering in an absent wind, put on his protective amulet and nodded as he stopped feeling the magical cold. "These are unusually potent, aren't they? I'll have to remember to go back there later." He nodded to the lot further along the street. "Let's see just how well they work."

Xander took in a deep breath and let it out. "Okay. Either this'll work, or this'll end up being incredibly embarrassing."

"Not to worry." He smiled and looked away quickly. "I'll be sure to pull you away if you faint again."

"I did not faint," Xander muttered as they neared the pit.

Rupert uncoiled the rope and tied it to the bottom of a light pole. Passersby would simply have to walk over it. He pulled it taught and then scaled down the concrete and dirt side of the pit. Xander followed him a moment later.

Xander shivered as he stepped onto the dirt, but nothing else happened to either of them. "I wish the aftereffects of the Council spell or whatever this is would make up its mind about how it affects people near it. I've had way enough of the constant shift from shivers to itching to dizziness." He shivered again and stuck his hands in his pockets. "So, what exactly do you need me for?" His voice echoed slightly in the large space.

Rupert removed a small notebook, a short and fat blessed candle, a candle tray and a cigarette lighter from his jeans pockets. The dirt was dry but packed, and he kicked up a light layer of dust as he sat on the ground. He motioned for Xander to sit across from him.

Xander crossed his arms. "Wait a minute. We're going to perform a ritual that will make the Council building re-appear in this very spot. Shouldn't we be sitting over on that nice handy sidewalk only a few feet that way?"

"This is what the spell requires. If this is to be done properly, then we should find ourselves sitting in one of the lower rooms of the building, completely unharmed." Which meant, though he had no intention of pointing this out, they would find themselves in the dungeons.

"You sure about that? We're not going to end up materializing in a wall or a tea cozy or, like, the floor?"

"I'm reasonably sure," Rupert said.

Xander plopped down on the ground. "Oh, yeah, you're the spokesperson of reassuring."

"Move back two inches," he said in lieu of a reply. Xander complied, and Rupert placed the candle equidistant from either of them. He reviewed his pocket-sized notebook again, making certain he'd memorized the pronunciations of the words of an ancient language archeologists hadn't discovered yet. When he was certain, he put the notebook in his lap. He leaned forward and lit the candle with a practiced movement, then returned to his seated position.

"This candle will act as a focus of concentration for both of us," he said. "By focusing on it, we will create a bond between our minds. I will use that bond to draw on the energies you use in order to phase through space but not time. Then, I will use those energies to attempt to access the pocket dimension where the building is being held. You might feel some tiredness, and it might be a short time before you are able to phase again. I do not know how long."

"That sounds like heady stuff. How come we didn't bring Willow with us?"

Rupert wished she was doing this. Her time with the Coven a year ago had significantly strengthened her mental willpower, which meant she had greater control than he did. "Because the Retriever must be in some way tied to the original Council, either by blood or by employment." Rupert fit both requirements.

Xander's teeth chattered. "Okay, then. Candle-watching it is." He shifted position and studied the candle.

The candle was enchanted with a spell to assist those people with thoughts that strayed too easily. Within seconds, his tense frame relaxed, his breathing became even and his transfixed stare remained open and unblinking.

It was nearing eleven, according to Rupert's watch. He needed to get started. With a sigh, he turned his complete attention to the candle.

He liked to think his own concentration was better than the younger man's, but his own thoughts strayed, for a moment. He remembered the last time he'd been here, at this very spot. Had it really only been two summers ago? It felt as if much more time had ….had passed…

Thoughts faded as he was caught in the candle's enchantment. He focused on the flame until all things around it, including Xander's outline and the looming building behind Xander, blurred beyond recognition.

Something else was there. No, not something else, someone, just on the edge of his mind. Rupert's eyes remained on the flame, but his mind focused on the new presence until it took on the sense of someone he knew.

_Hey, straggler_, the presence said, in a mentally broadcast voice a little older and louder than Xander's physical voice. Perhaps it was the voice Xander heard when he spoke. _Welcome to the party. How long has it been?_

_Only a moment, I believe_, Rupert replied, though he felt disconnected from time. He could have been lost in the candle's flame for hours, perhaps days.

He began to chant. He wondered if his lips moved as he thought the words. Perhaps it was all in his mind. Either way, it would be sufficient, as long as the words were imagined correctly.

Though still separate entities, their minds were linked. It was possible that he heard Xander's metal voice join in during the chant, though he would never be certain, so intent on the power transferred by the words was he.

_Inkh' -ca hip. _Ink-ha, a metal image of a cluck of his tongue, a pause, stick his tongue to the roof of his mouth and pull away, ka, pause, heep. The translation, "From him to me," was as blatant in his mind as their pronunciation.

He paused as a feeling of strength entered his being. The energy transfer spell had begun.

_Inkh' –ca ta'hip_. From him to me to outside.

They were two simple phrases, but they needed to be repeated forty times, and each incantation must be thought carefully, slowly and with the same inflection as the time before.

In other circumstances, such a task would have been tedious. The candle flame prevented his mind from straying and helped him focus on each syllable of each repetition.

_Inkh' –ca hip. Inkh' –ca ta'hip._

Little by little, warmth flooded his body and his mind. Finally, while his heart pounded, he thought the final syllable.

Nearly unbearable heat flooded his senses and his thoughts, though he somehow still saw the candle flame clearly.

Along with the energies of the Potential Energy that coursed through him, memories, feelings and the sensation of past experiences opened up to him. The memory of the first time Xander had intentionally phased appeared in his mind.

…_It played out before Rupert's mental vision as if he were living Xander's memory of the occasion. Rupert started in surprise as the Sunnydale High Library phased into the ground floor of their base in Cleveland, though in the memory, Xander/Rupert did not recognize it…_

Rupert never realised Xander had seen their Cleveland home so many years before they arrived there. Exactly how much did the Potential Entity know about the future?

_Way too much,_ Xander's mind replied. _And way too little. Andrew's always pestering me about it. Some of the newbie Slayers do, too._

His mental tone was flippant, but over the link, he couldn't hide what he was really thinking. Rupert plunged deeper into memories that weren't his own.

_It happened at least once a month, sometimes more often. Someone would give Xander a look, and other times someone would ask the questions, "Didn't you see this coming? Why didn't you stop it? What's the point of time travel if you're not even going to use it to help us?"_

Rupert knew he was not innocent of treating Xander in this manner. He hadn't realised just how often it had occurred.

His guilt faded away, however, as other sensations overrode it. Power flooded him, reaching a height he hadn't felt in years. It was such a heady feeling, to be able to reach into someone else's being and experience his or her power for himself. The last time he'd felt this way was during a ritual with Ethan, Phillip and Dierdre…

_Woah. This is…this is amazing_, thought Xander. His mental speech seemed far away, and his awed words were slurred. The tiredness induced on his end by the energy transfer had entered his mind as well as his body.

Rupert snapped out of his own excitement and awe. Soon, Xander would fall asleep, in order to replenish the energy he'd given to Rupert. Rupert needed to continue with this process before that occurred, or they would have to start again tomorrow…though perhaps not. A second attempt would not be as kind to Xander as the first attempt. Rupert would also have to spend a hundred pounds on another enchanted candle. No, it must be done today or not at all.

_How do you phase, Xander? _He asked, hoping to jolt the man back into alertness for a least a moment more. Xander never could explain it out loud; Rupert prayed that he could explain it now.

_It's easy…_Xander replied faintly, and once again, his memories were open to Rupert. Rupert remembered not just what happened, but how.

_Yes_, he said, as understanding dawned after all these years of wondering. It really was all very simple, and the transferred power now filling his veins near to bursting point made it possible for him to experience, at least once, what it would be like.

Sort of. Rupert was about to use that phasing ability to access a dimension Xander never would have reached on his own.

In the physical world, Rupert closed his eyes. He couldn't stare into the inviting light of the candle any longer; this would require his full concentration.

Everything in his mind turned black. The link between him and Xander was severed, but that was all right. He'd already taken all the energy from Xander that he would need, or so he hoped, because there was no going back.

He felt disoriented and cut off from any sensations that would have anchored him to the physical world. He began to panic and struggled to calm himself.

Abstractedly, he knew that his body must have existed _somewhere_, but his mind had been separated from it. Whether it was a temporary or permanent separation remained to be seen.

Xander's memories were gone, leaving only Rupert's own store of experiences. This was what he needed. Xander's mind would not hold the memories Rupert needed for this next part of the ritual.

Rupert's mind called up all of his memories of the London Watcher Headquarters he could think about. Images flashed in the darkness of his mind, surrounding him, plunging him back into the past, even if it was only in his imagination.

He needed to focus on the details of the building and not the events that took place there.

Like many other buildings around London, the Council building had been in a constant state of flux. The original building was constructed centuries ago, and many remnants of it still survived. The rest of it had been destroyed in battles and reconstructed in the styles of the current time period. Still more parts of the structure had been added, torn down or renovated in accordance with the organization's needs or the Head of the Council's fancy.

There had been some attempt at consistency. Keys appeared at corners throughout the ground floor level, which complimented well with the buildings to either side, while the upper floors had adopted a classical design, including engaged columns and statuary.

He recalled every detail he'd ever noticed about the place, both consciously and subconsciously. He tried to remember the feel of a bookcase as he brushed his fingers against it while removing a tome two centuries old, or the colours used in a painting hung in a conference room. He pictured every detail possible in the plaster and mural ceilings of the ball room and practice rooms; the patterns in the carpeting in the corridors and the sounds they made as he stepped across them; the carvings in the wooden stair railings.

He tried, desperately, not to think about Rebecca Thorn looking up and smiling as he entered her office, or Charles Green focused upon an **uncatalogued** treasure, or Quentin Travers' frown as they seated themselves in the parlor and discussed an unknown entity named Glory. But his memories were populated by men and women he liked and disliked and who equally liked and disliked him in return.

With any hope, the building that was taking shape in his imagination, haunted by ghosts, would be enough to transport him to the pocket dimension where the actual building waited.

Strengthened by borrowed power and as accurate an image of headquarters as he could hold in his mind, Rupert phased.

-----

One moment, their minds were joined; the next, his thoughts were completely and totally his own.

Xander blinked, and the candle flame went out of focus. Xander looked about in confusion before he remembered. He was in a big hole in the ground because he and Giles had climbed down there to do a spell, and…

"Giles?" The Watcher was nowhere in sight. Alarmed, Xander searched the area franctically. The walls of the concrete and dirt-lined pit were too high to get a clear view of the streets to either side. The sky above was still day, but according to his watch, it was now six in the evening.

Xander tried to push himself to his feet and collapsed back to the ground. The rush of adrenaline that had only just hit him was fading, fast.

"The energy transfer." It made sense. He wished he'd known he would end up feeling this tired, though.

His entire body felt incredibly heavy. Giles already forgotten, Xander lay back on the dirt and closed his eyes.

His eyes snapped open. The candle's flame burned brightly in the darkness. Streetlights added softer illumination, and passing car headlights lit up the walls of the buildings adjacent to the pit.

Xander groaned and sat up. He felt stiff everywhere, but a night on a dirt floor would do that to anyone.

"Man, Giles, the things I do for you, buddy."

There was no answer. Giles, apparently, was still nowhere in the vicinity.

_Great. I've got a missing Watcher, I feel refreshed but still like crap and all I got was this lousy candle._

His watch said it was after three in the morning, but on what morning? He felt his chin; there was stubble there, but no more than a day's worth.

His cell phone beeped. He jumped. The phone's screen was really, really bright. It informed him he had seven messages.

He didn't bother playing them. Instead, he dialed '001' and then the number.

Dawn answered. After a moment or two, Willow came on the line, then Dawn, then, finally, Buffy. Xander swallowed in a dry throat and repeated his answers four times. Next time, he was going to recommend doing this via speakerphone.

"I felt him phase," Willow said. "It was a little bit like the feeling I get whenever you phase, but this had a whole lot of power behind him, probably a combination of his and yours. How much energy did you give him?"

"I'm thinking a lot. I was out for a while. I feel fine now, though. Fully refreshed and charged." Xander rubbed his neck. "Any way of retrieving our wandering Watcher Head?"

"I don't so. The pocket dimension where the Council building is being stored got rid of its human population a long time ago, and it's currently only designed to hold inanimate objects. So, Giles can exist there only in a hypothetical state. If we try to pull him out, the pocket universe will have confirmation of his existence. That would be of the bad. If he can get himself out, then he'll be fine. If we try to go in after him, he'll be erased."

Xander stomped his foot once. "I knew this was idea was of the bad and not-thought-out. I never should have let him do this."

Overhead, the stars went out. Clouds in a cloudless night formed over the lot.

To be Concluded on 11/28/08


	2. Part Two

PART TWO

The landscape of his mind had been black. The environment Rupert found himself in was bright and full.

The pocket dimension was small. Several kilometers away, on the edge of sight, the ground met the dome that formed the sky. Lights like stars and twinkling swirls like the dust of unformed galaxies formed a mural on the inside of the dome. The interior of the pocket dimension had assumed a cruel imitation of Rupert's own world. Several key details had been twisted or lost in the copy. Purple grass bent under the tread of his shoes. Each blade glowed the color of a black light. Spread thin throughout the meadow-like setting were twisted, wooden forms he assumed were intended to be trees. The not-trees reached for a sky that was not there. Their trunks and branches, devoid of leaves, were molded like statues into eerie, painful shapes of human-like figures and appendages. One tree seemed to be a gnarled, wooden hand, reaching up and begging the not-sky for supplication. Another tree might have been the upper half of a woman screaming, her visage twisted in grief.

That was the extent of the landscape. The electric purple grass stretched from the edge of the inferior dimension to the center, and every once in a while, the flat plain was broken by a tree-like form.

Shivers traveled down his spine. Every instinct within him screamed to leave, to return to the world of rationale and paranormal happenstance. He felt invisible eyes upon him in every direction, even from the grass beneath him.

Rupert had been raised in a family of sorcerers and champions for the side of the light. He had never taught himself to question the impossible. He had, however, been drilled in the rules of a world that were unalterable to any permanent extent by magic. Those rules wouldn't apply here. He wondered what he was breathing. How could the mock-ups of grass and trees produce oxygen?

He tried his best not to think too long about it. If he stayed here any length of time, he was certain he would go mad.

So intent was he on holding the memory of Watcher Headquarters in his mind that it took him a moment to register what was right in front of his eyes. There was the building itself, at the center of this improbable environment. It rose above head and almost seemed to touch the not-sky. Perhaps it did.

There was no sign that the building had once been reduced to smithereens. Every stone and every windowpane had been returned to their proper place. Any charred marks, any ash from burnt portions had been disappeared.

With a deep breath of the not-air, Rupert set a foot on the lowest step leading up to the entrance. It was solid underfoot. The portal at the top opened with a twist of the doorknob, and he stepped inside.

It was too quiet. It shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did.

His footsteps echoed across the marble tiles in the wide entrance hall. The interior of headquarters had been fairly modernized. Though old masonry, columns and ceilings had remained intact in many of the rooms, the walls on this floor were plain and flat except for the occasional painting.

The electrical cables strung outside connected to nothing at all, but the lights went on when he turned the knobs beneath the secretary's counter. The air was cool, leading him to assume the air conditioning was fully functional, as well. A telephone rested on the counter next to a typewriter. Many of Rupert's colleagues had shared his dislike of computers. It was just as well. Computers were too complex to function properly around high concentrations of magic. They had a tendency to explode, especially near the number of powerful artifacts the Watchers kept in the vaults down below and in the cataloguing and restoration chambers above.

Corridors to the left and right led into the two branches of the building, the south and east wings. A marble staircase beside and behind the secretary's counter ascended to the first floor. Weaponry, which he remembered was an assortment of decorative and battle-ready pieces, were arranged on the wall along the staircase.

In order to phase the building and himself back to proper reality, he needed to be at the exact center of the building. He crossed the echoing tiles to the foot of the stairs.

There should have been guards, posted at the main entrance and before the branching corridors. A secretary should have been sitting behind that counter, inquiring as to his reason for visiting Headquarters. None of them had desired to die. None of them had deserved that fate. It seemed rather unfair for them to suffer a bombing, be transported to a pocket dimension where they were healed and kept in limbo for four weeks, only to be lost, irrevocably, after that period of time. It baffled him; why keep the building intact, but hold onto its occupants for only a short period of time? What, exactly, happened when they were removed from this pocket dimension? It wasn't much of a protection spell, if it didn't ensure the safety of the very people who needed and used the building.

But, then, the Council had never taken a vested interest in keeping individuals alive. Slayers had oftentimes been considered expendable; why not treat Watchers with the same disregard?

The answers likely lay in the Library on the first through fourth floors. One of the Council's volumes was bound to contain all pertinent information on the Council's protective spells.

The carpet on the staircase muffled the tread of his shoes. If it hadn't, he wouldn't have heard the bolt behind him locking.

He looked back at the door. As he turned, something drifted by in his peripheral vision. He couldn't tell what.

Even as his brain whirled from surprise and puzzlement, he flattened himself against the wall. He should have been the only animate being in this miniature reality. Obviously, he'd been mistaken.

He stopped and listened, but heard no other sound. He had a stake in his jacket, but he didn't know if it would do him any good. He took a sword out of its wall bracket and studied the blade. It was blunt, meaning it was decorative. He replaced it and grabbed a nearby axe. This one was sharp.

He descended the steps slowly and peered down either wings. He saw nothing but architecture. This did little to reassure him. He tried to undo the bolt on the door, but it was thoroughly stuck. The doorknob wouldn't turn, either. In fact, the door wouldn't budge even a centimeter. It was as if something kept it in place. He had no idea what that something was.

"Wonderful."

He had two courses of action, locate the being hiding in the building or continue upstairs and get to where he needed to be to perform the second part of the retrieval ritual. There was the chance that if he phased the building back to Earth, whatever was inside might come along for the ride. That would not bode well.

He sighed. He'd really been hoping for something clean and simple. Well, perhaps not simple, but something straightforward. How hard could it really be, to retrieve a hundreds-of-years-old building from a pocket dimension?

He scowled, turned right and began a cautious walk down the south wing corridor, heading in the direction he'd seen the figment disappear.

Though he remained at alert, listening and watching out for anything odd, he felt a pang as he moved along the corridor. To either side of him were doors, all closed, which led to either offices or conference rooms. His lips pressed into a thin line as he scanned the names on the doors. He didn't recognize all of the names; he'd spent as little time as possible in London and at Headquarters in the past seven years, even while he was in England last year. Some members had retired and had been replaced by younger staff he'd never met.

The central corridor intersected with other corridors. He glanced down each branch but saw nothing out of the ordinary…except the view out the windows on the far walls. Each new glimpse of that purple and black landscape caused his grip to tighten on the axe's shaft.

The main corridor ended at a T-Junction. Directly ahead was an office door. The legend had been painted in gold, Q. Travers, H. C. W., or Quentin Travers, Head of the Council of Watchers.

Quentin. The other man's death had done little to stop the anger Rupert felt whenever Rupert thought about him. He felt an odd mixture of satisfaction and horror, as well. He didn't regret Quentin's passing, but no-one deserved to be erased from existence.

Unlike every other door he'd come across, the door to this office was open a crack. It was dark within.

He pushed open the door, and light from the hallway spilled into the room. He saw a hint of an old, floral rug, a tall and full bookcase he knew had been crafted in the seventeenth century and an ebony desk placed before the opposite wall.

The darkness behind the desk obscured the crossbow decorating the wall, except it wasn't darkness.

The creature, whatever it may have been, flowed over the desk and rushed him. Some details of the creature's form became clearer as it entered the light, but they were a blur as Rupert threw himself to the side.

He thought he saw something that looked awfully like tweed.

The creature flew into the corridor. Rupert pivoted and turned to face it. He froze.

The ghost of Quentin Travers said, "Rupert?" at the same time Rupert said, "Quentin."

What was left of the Head of the Council floated off the ground, as was standard with ghosts. Unlike a normal apparition, however, Quentin wasn't white and translucent. He was in colour. His checks were a normal hue for someone alive. Since he'd taken the position as Head in 1998, he'd proceeded to lose half of his hair. He wore a gray tweed suit and a brown vest, appearing the picture of propriety even in death.

One moment, he appeared solid; the next, he was somewhat translucent, and then he was solid again. The constant shift between the two was a little disorienting.

Rupert lowered the axe. "Trust if one of the Council survived, it would be you."

Quentin made an amused sound. "I wouldn't call this survival."

He shook his head. "Good God, man, what happened?"

"My own stubbornness, I'm afraid. One moment, the building was being blown up; the next, we found ourselves here. And we waited." Quentin's anger and disappointment bore into him, making him wince. "For four long weeks. Peters and Farian both lost their minds and attempted to injure other members of staff. They spent their last weeks of existence in the dungeons. I don't suppose you knew them, so it likely doesn't matter to you."

So, it was possible to go mad here. The knowledge wasn't comforting. "It does matter. I am sorry."

"So you would say after it is too late."

Rupert fought down a surge of irritation. It would do him no good.

"We tried to return to Earth ourselves, but of course, that is not how the retrieval spell works." Quentin looked away. "Why ever not is what I would have wanted to know."

"You don't want to know anymore?"

"I'm dead, or as near to it as I'm going to be. It wouldn't make any difference now." Perhaps out of habit, because he surely didn't need it now, Quentin took a breath. "After the four weeks were up, everyone simply began to disappear. The dimension would not accommodate us any longer, another condition of the spell that I would have changed if I'd been able to do so. Before it was too late, I cast a protection spell on myself." He sighed. "As you can see, it didn't work quite as I had intended."

It was the longest voluntary explanation the man had ever given Rupert.

"So," Quentin continued, after a moment of silence. "Here you are, come too late. I assume you still want to retrieve the building, to use the resources held here for your disposal."

There was something in his tone, though calm and business-like on the surface, that caused Rupert to tighten his grip on the shaft of the axe. "As the new Head of the Council, it is my right and my obligation."

Quentin laughed. "New Head of the Council? Surely you are not so naïve."

Rupert tensed. "I'm sorry?"

"I'm not dead. Not completely." He shrugged. "Part of me is, I will admit, but not all of me. Until that occurs, I am still Head. And I will not relinquish control of this building to you."

Rupert shifted his stance. "For what reason?" His eyes slid down the corridor, looking for any other apparitions. "The Council is not completely gone. We still have need of the research materials here, the weapons, the financial records."

"I do not care why you need it." Quentin's lips curled back into a snarl quite unlike any expression the Watcher had used in life. "The Council is gone. Those of our number who were not at Headquarters at the time it was sent into this hellish place failed to help us! They are traitors, all of them-including you, Rupert Giles!"

A number of feelings and thoughts passed through Rupert's mind.

First, came anger, which quickly became rage. The ghost of Quentin Travers had dared to call him-him!-a traitor. After everything that had happened…everything he'd lived through and done …

He fought with difficulty to suppress those feelings before he lost all control. And once he'd calmed down, another thought came to him.

_He's completely right. _Guilt rose again in his throat, and he squashed it back down with the rage.

_He's starkers. _What was left of Quentin Travers had lost its mind. There could be no reasoning with a madman.

If he wanted to get out of this place with his own sanity intact, or as intact as it had been before he'd come to this place, he had to get upstairs.

_Now!_

Rupert darted past Quentin's sputtering half-alive ghost and took off at a run down the corridor.

Halfway to the entrance hall, pain flared up in his knee. He lost his balance and nearly fell. His arthritis had never been so painful as now, but then, he hadn't done any serious running in months, perhaps not since Sunnydale's destruction.

A scream that was very human and full of rage echoed down the corridor in his wake. Rupert cursed his body's timing as he righted himself and kept going. The pain faded into the background as adrenaline flooded his body.

He skidded into the entrance hall and pounded up the stairs. Halfway up the first flight, hands wrapped around his ankles and pulled. Rupert cried out as he fell against the steps. His vision swam, but he twisted onto his side and swung the axe.

Quentin hovered in the air above him. Rupert could see the ceiling through his translucent form. The axe passed through the apparition. The blade lodged in the railing and wouldn't tug loose.

"Now, that is not fair," Rupert said.

Quentin's expression of absolute fury never wavered.

In desperation, Rupert's leg lashed out. It connected, and the not-ghost soared backward through the air. Rupert's mouth dropped open.

With a snarl, Quentin slowed and flew straight back.

"Bugger." Rupert scrambled to a standing position and hurried as fast as he could up the stairs. He didn't look back, but he heard Quentin's mad mutterings become louder and louder.

The corridor at the top of the stairs branched to the left and right. Rupert climbed up the last stair and threw himself to the left. Tweed-covered arms followed by legs soared through the space he'd vacated. Instead of slowing, Quentin kept going and flowed through a wall.

Rupert skidded around a forty-five-degree corner, hurried down the south wing corridor and entered the Library.

Instead of branching corridors, such as what could be found on the south wing's ground floor, the central nave of the Library rose four stories to a rib vaulted ceiling. A clere story near the top offered darkened views of the world outside. Electric chandeliers suspended from the ceiling offered the only illumination. Shelves filled the arcades to either side of him, and more were visible beyond the railings on the second, third and fourth floors.

The heavy sound of his footsteps echoed up to the high ceiling. He passed aisles upon aisles without stopping. The Library was the quietest it had ever been, for even a dozen studious Watchers could make noise. The feeling of solitude reminded him of the Sunnydale High Library during one of the many periods of the day when he'd found himself alone with his books. He would have loved to be alone now.

His eyes skipped over the labels on the side of each bookcase. He really hoped that Head Librarian Crampton hadn't decided to reorganize the Council's extensive collection and place the section he needed on another floor.

He breathed a sigh of relief, a difficult thing to do when one is panting, when he found the section he was after, 00043. He darted into the aisle. "Now what?" he murmured. Hundreds of titles lay before him on this aisle alone. He scanned the spines closest to him as he tried to remember the particulars of this category of the Council's Decimal System. He wasn't as familiar with this category, but then, Sunnydale had only occasionally dealt with apparitions of any sort.

"00043.27…" He let out a sigh of exasperation as his memory failed to yield the next decimal point. He stared at the books catalogued in the .27 subcategory of category 00043. It started partway down the aisle on the top shelf, some eight feet high, continued to the bottom shelf and back to the top in the next partition.

Giles blinked as he came to a realisation. The entire subcategory was about apparitions.

8 at the third decimal point of any category always held volumes containing defensive and offensive spells and advice. Much of it was rubbish, he knew, would prove to be rubbish. He needed to determine what was useable and what wasn't. He tracked the titles. "_How to Combat Mental Projections of One's Opponents_…_The Ancient and Honourable Art of Defensive Projecting_…"

"Rupert." Quentin's voice was low and distant, but it echoed in the chamber. "Do you know why you are so disappointing?"

_Ghosts and How to Avoid Them by Agnes Nitt, Witch…Defensive, Enslavement and Binding Spells to be Used Only Against Incorporeal Forms…_Yes.

"I've read the reports from your teachers at the Academy. They all say much the same thing, that you were a promising young man with the Council's best interests at heart."

Rupert snatched up the book and hastily flipped through the pages.

"Head Watcher Litterman's mistake was removing you from your position here as librarian and assistant trainer," said Quentin. His voice was a little louder. He was closer. "We should never have given you direct supervision of a Slayer.

"From what we'd been able to ascertain using the Third Entity, which as you know is no longer in our possession, and other resources, we thought she was a simple valley girl, engrossed in erroneous matters such as clothes and boys. Litterman assumed you would not have any trouble controlling her."

Quentin's hovering figure appeared at the end of the aisle. "As tragic as his loss was to the Council, it is perhaps fortunate his health failed when it did. He never learned of your failure."

"Finished?" Rupert asked. Quentin's figure faded into and out of solidity. Rupert continued to flip through the book.

Quentin's eyes fell on the book. He swooped forward.

Rupert hastily began the spell. "I Banish Thee, Creature of Air and Earth; I Banish Thee, Remnant of a Being Since Gone; I Banish Thee, from This-"

Quentin bowled him over to the stone floor. The page of the book disappeared from his field of vision, and the arcade's vaulted ceiling replaced it. Quentin's face appeared, blocking his view of the ceiling. Any semblance of sanity was gone from the deceased Watcher's eyes, along with any desire to make grand speeches.

Quentin's solidified hands wrapped around Rupert's neck. Rupert held the book where he could see it behind Quentin's left shoulder and continued the incantation.

"-Place, Until the World Around Thee Doth Crumble and-"

Quentin growled and pressed his fingers into Rupert's windpipe. Rupert desperately took a lungful of air and kept going. Purple spots appeared in his vision, threatening to obscure the page of the book.

"-Thine Existence hath been Extinguished!"

Quentin's growl became a scream of pain.

The fingers disappeared from around his neck, and his head thudded against the marble floor. He stared at the ceiling, took in a breath and then another as the screaming continued.

Glass broke, and Quentin's cry faded into the distance. Silence fell in the library.

Rupert's skull rang painfully and caused him to mutter a number of obscenities. He leaned against the shelves as he stood.

Glass littered the nave. One of the windows in the clere story had shattered, likely when Quentin was thrown through it. Wherever Quentin was, it would have to be within a radius of a few kilometers from the building, but it wasn't inside. Rupert was safe as long as he didn't leave headquarters.

He hadn't expected the spell to be that helpful. Considering his luck, it wouldn't last until "the world around doth crumble" but for only a handful of seconds, then Quentin would be back. He'd stay on his guard.

He tucked the book under his arm and jogged to the Library entrance. He ascended the stairs up to the second floor, which was roughly halfway up the building and would have to do as the location of the building's exact center.

The second floor was decorated much the same as the first and ground floors. An old, creaking wooden floor with a richly embroidered rug terminated at the base of walls decorated with tapestries and carved wood paneling.

The south wing corridor would quickly bring him to the second floor of the Library. The east wing corridor, to the right, would direct him to recreation and exercise rooms, the latter used typically and by the senior staff but by Academy novices and the youngest Watchers.

Directly in front of him, instead of a sharp ninety-degree corner where the two wings met, there was a door. Rupert pressed his back to the wall, reached over and turned the handle. He didn't need any more surprises.

The parlour on the other side had the shape of a cut diamond, with the door in the fifth wall. Windows in the two walls directly opposite would have afforded views of the Thames and the opposite bank; instead, they reminded Rupert just what lay outside, as if he needed any more reminding. He'd never realised how many windows could be found at Headquarters. He wove around high-backed chairs, footstools and little tables and came to a stop before one of the windows. He stared out at the bright violet meadow and twisted flora, but he couldn't spot Quentin.

It was ironic that the center of the building was the very room where Council members retired to have a smoke. There were brandy and sherry bottles and, curiously, one bottle of coke on the tables. One bottle had shattered on the rug before a chair. Rupert tried not to wonder who had held it. Perhaps it was a good thing, indeed, that Mark Litterman hadn't lived long enough to be killed in a place so far from his beloved home country.

It took a few moments to drag the heavy chairs away from the center of the room. He ached from various bruises, and another minute passed as he lowered himself to the floor and arranged his protesting legs in a lotus position.

He closed his eyes, surrendering his vision to darkness, and focused inward. Now that he was concentrating, he could feel the power he'd borrowed from Xander. It was still there, and still strong, but it wasn't as strong as before.

He frowned and opened his eyes. He'd used a significant portion of the borrowed Potential Entity power when he'd phased here, more than he'd expected. What he had now would not be enough to phase both him and the building back to Earth.

He'd failed.

He propped `his elbows on his knees and dropped his head in his hands. The madness would probably set in any time now. He wondered if the spell would erase him from existence if he stayed here for four weeks. He might just find out.

There had to be something he could use. He needed a certain kind of magical power. Perhaps the Council had something stored here that would prove beneficial.

In the days when he'd worked here daily, he'd divided his time between the Library and the training facilities. He'd set foot into the vaults no more than twice, and it hadn't been to help catalog the magical objects and weapons that were a part of the Council's collection. He'd have to familiarize himself with the cataloguing system Charles, Johnson and Petrov had used, then he'd have to sort through the collection to see if there was anything useful.

That would take far more time than he was willing to spend here. The only alternative was… "Quentin."

Quentin was a being caught between life and death, or between two planes of existence, if his explanation had any semblance of truth. Rupert's encounter with him seemed to support his claim.

The energies Quentin used to maintain that balance between planes might just be the kind Rupert could use to phase the building to Earth.

There was only one problem with that. That same energy was likely keeping Quentin intact. If Rupert took that energy, it was possible Quentin would not survive the transfer.

-----

The local radio stations and news programmes gave the same baffled report. Storm clouds had gathered over the Thames for a day. No one could say for certain from what direction they had come. The clouds had appeared out of nowhere. London's citizens and tourists waited for the downpour that didn't seem to be coming.

Willow folded her arms and studied the weather. Xander placed his hands in his pockets and stared up with her. They stood within the L-shaped pit. The enchanted candle hadn't been moved from its spot and stood at their feet.

It was just past noon, and many commuters were out on the sidewalks on either side of the pit, heading toward the local cuisine. Xander's stomach growled. He ignored it in favor of studying the passersby. Not one of them glanced at the pit. They didn't even seem to realize it was there. According to Willow, a Masking Spell was responsible, meant to conceal the Watchers' Council from public scrutiny. Apparently, the spell had been placed on the location and not the building, if it was still intact with the building gone.

Xander wondered, idly, what would happen if he climbed out and jumped in front of one of the passing Londoners. Not that he would try to find out just for laughs. He knew how people in Sunnydale and Cleveland would behave. In the former, they'd scream and run. In the latter, they'd scream and run, spray mace in his only good eye or beat him senseless.

He turned his attention back to the sky. If anything, the clouds had grown darker. "I'm thinkin' the darkest cloud up there is right on top of us," he said. "I'm also thinkin' it's gonna be a really big storm, like fill-the-giant-hole-in-the-ground-with-a-neverending-torrent-of-rain kind of storm."

She didn't look away. "I'm thinkin' you're right."

"What should we be expecting here? All this for the Council building?"

Willow shrugged. "I'm not too familiar with the specifics of the spell that sent the building into the pocket dimension, but the Retrieval portion of a lot of powerful Transportation Spells tend to cause a reaction in the elements of the reality in which the Retrieved object will manifest."

Xander blinked. "Wills. You know to dumb down to Non-Wicca-speak for all us Regular Joes."

Still not looking down, she reached over and shoved him. "You're no Regular Joe, Mister, so don't let me hear you talking like that." After a moment, she continued, "The clouds are drawn here by the Council Building's imminent return. As soon as it appears in this dimension again, it'll rain. A lot. It might rain regular old water. It could be something more mystic-y, like a Rain of Ice Cream Sundaes, or a Rain of Frogs." She made a worried face. "I hope it's not frogs."

Xander smiled. "In that case, let's rally for the Sundaes." He checked his watch and sighed. "It's been two days since we did the spell. Giles should have been back by now."

Willow frowned and looked down at the candle. "Yeah. He should have."

Xander shivered. "The protective pouch isn't helping as much anymore." He held up the amulet he still wore around his neck. "I'm thinking the magical levels have increased past its protection."

Willow quirked an eyebrow. "Impressive Wicca-speak, Xand. What was that about dumbing down?"

He smiled back. "Hey, hanging out with you, I'm bound to pick up something. Rest assured, you would still whoop my butt in a magic book quiz."

"Darn tootin'." She became serious. "What do you sense, exactly?"

Xander shivered again and buried his hands back into his pockets. "The same sense of wrongness I felt before Giles and I did the first stage of the Retrieval Ritual. Like something's tried to phase that wasn't supposed to, or it's trying to phase right now but it's not having much luck."

-----

The thought of having to face a crazed poltergeist a second time didn't thrill him. He was tired and hungry. Rupert found a few things that hadn't gone bad in the ground floor pantry, next to a kitchen with dishes still in the sink. He prepared his meal quickly and steered clear of that part of the kitchen.

Anywhere he went, he was reminded of just how empty it was. He did his best to ignore it as he sat in the dining room. Of course, the only other thing on his mind was Quentin. By the time he'd finished his meal, he'd made up his mind.

He had done horrible things in his time. He'd suffocated a man to ensure a goddess's death. He'd fed power to demons that had used their newfound strength to perform evil acts.

In the case of the former, it had been necessary to ensure the continuation of the multi-verse. In the case of the latter, it had been due to his stupidity, anger and desire for power.

He stood on the steps outside the entrance and stared at the edge of the universe, a handful of kilometers away. He could just make out a small, gray figure floating over the grass before a background of stars. _Defensive, Enslavement and Binding Spells to be Used Only Against Incorporeal Forms_ was open in Rupert's hands.

"I Summon Thee Who hath been Banished. Thou Shall Return to This Place from Whence Thou hath been Cast Out, but Thou Shalt Not Return Freely. Three Times Thine Caster Shall Speak: Thou Shalt Be Bound. Thou Shalt Be Bound. Thou Shalt Be Bound."

The gray dot on the horizon was still a gray dot, but as he watched, it grew closer until he could distinguish arms and legs.

As Quentin rushed through the air with limbs wheeling, Rupert heard his scream. He came to a sudden stop two meters above the steps.

Rupert winced but forced himself not to look away. He'd brought this about. He would see it to its end.

Quentin's glare was as icy as an apparition could manage. "Damn you to the Fourth Hell of Izelbaum!"

He didn't seem manic, just angry. It was an improvement. Rupert hesitated, then began. "I need to borrow magical energy in order to work the second stage of the Retrieval Ritual.

"As the appointed Head of the Council, elected by voting members of the Watcher's Council, it is my duty and my obligation to provide for whatever needs we may have by any means at my disposal. I have come here to retrieve the rightful property of the Council. Now that I have bound you to this location, I expect your full cooperation. If you do not cooperate, then you will be made undone."

That was how binding spells worked. If a bound spirit or being absolutely refused to follow commands, it would become steadily weaker with each ignored command until it died. Because Quentin was already half-dead, refusing even one order would likely destroy him.

Quentin's face turned a deep shade of red. His shoulders shook.

It had been impossible to ruffle the man in life. Rupert hoped Quentin wasn't slipping into another manic episode. Though, if he thought of it, it would make some things less difficult. It was easier to harm something that was trying to cause him harm in return.

"I know the sort of energy required to perform the ritual, Rupert," Quentin said through gritted teeth. "It is the very energy keeping me in this state."

"Do you really wish to continue like this forever?" Rupert tilted his head and lowered his voice. "There's nothing here for you anymore."

"That is not for you to say!" Quentin stretched out his arms and swooped down. Rupert raised an arm and dodged to the side.

Quentin didn't get near. He screamed and landed, hard, against the steps and slumped across them, clutching his head.

"You're only make things worse for yourself, Quentin! I have bound you; you know full well you can't harm me or attempt to harm me without hurting yourself instead."

Quentin stood and faced him. His half-alive feet seemed to touch the steps. "Damn you…_Master_." He spit out the word.

Rupert did not flinch. He held Quentin's gaze. "If you're quite finished. Follow me."

He turned and strolled up to the open door. He did not check if Quentin was floating along behind him.

An inner calm settled within him. The old rage of his youth would not control him. The indifference and determination he had learned to summon since that period of his life was at the fore.

He tried his utmost not to acknowledge this part of his psyche, but the piece he'd allowed to surface was ample proof he was already quite mad without the assistance of this place. Buffy and the others did not know how deeply his personal madness ran. He wondered what they would think if they learned of what had and would happen here. They would not hear of it from him. The knowledge would do them no good, and it would not be the worst secret he would take to the life after.

He led the way up the stairs and into the parlour and bade Quentin hover in the center.

He positioned himself on the ground before the half-alive spirit and set a candle on the floor between them. He'd found it in the magic supply vault. He lit the wick. "The position you hold, between life and death, is unnatural," said Rupert. "When the Council building is removed from this reality, the reality will collapse, and nothing within it will survive. You must move on, either now or later."

"Do not try to bury what you are about to do in righteous excuses," Quentin snapped. "If the Council building remains here, so will I. I will not assuage your guilt for doing something so selfish."

Rupert looked up sharply. "As if you are free of the same behavior. You have no need of this facility any longer, and yet you assume a claim over it out of a pitiful attempt at revenge." His voice hardened. "Watch the candle." Just as with the first part of the ritual, the candle was needed to help the participants focus.

Their gazes locked. Quentin grimaced but didn't look down.

Rupert glared. "Quentin Travers, I command you!"

Quentin began to shake. "If it means my death either way…" He sneered. "…I will not assist you."

"You will obey-" Rupert stopped. His mouth dropped open.

Quentin's features, clothes, and skin transformed into a solid black form bereft of details. The dark humanoid shape changed back into Quentin.

It was happening; the madness was setting in. But, no, Quentin screamed before the transformation occurred a second time. His voice faded with his form. When the black blob became Quentin again, he wasn't screaming anymore. Instead, he gurgled, as if drowning. Drool frothed down his chin.

Horrified, Rupert surged to his feet. He knocked over the candle and hastily stomped out the flame that spread to the floor. Smoke rose from the charred rug, but not enough to obscure his view as Quentin convulsed. "Quentin! Stop!"

Quentin's eyes rolled back into his head. A moment later, the whites of his eyes turned black. Dark gray smoke drifted in swirls from the his nose and mouth. The smoke cascaded to the floor and spread, quickly covering the space around his feet, then the rest of the floor in the room.

Rupert backed away. Bile rose in his throat. He'd seen countless bodies in his career, but this was different. He felt it in his stomach. No living thing, man or creature, should ever witness this.

Quentin's features took on a pasty gray tone that spread to his clothes and shoes. More convulsions racked his body. He made no noise.

He exploded. Black and gray particles flew in all directions, backed by a shock wave of energy, the same energy that had kept his form intact.

The wave knocked Rupert onto his back. His head hit the edge of a table, and everything faded out.

-----

"It's coming," said Willow.

"Oh, yeah." Every area of Xander's skin itched, and the sensation had brought friends armed with feathers and other torture implements. He squirmed and grasped the amulet around his neck. Relief flowed down his fisted hand to the rest of his body.

The clouds overhead were as dark as night, darker than any regular storm clouds. Xander would have thought the clouds had vanished and a blanket of stars had arrived, except for two things. One, there were no pinpricks of light identifiable as stars. Two, on the horizon in any direction was a streak of blue, evidence that daylight could be found in other parts of the hemisphere.

Headlights of cars turned on hastily. Tires squealed and metal, plastic and flesh tore apart as land and water vehicles collided. In the Thames, a restaurant boat blew its whistle as a tour boat veered off course. Pedestrians froze on blackened sidewalks unlit by timed streetlights. Midnight had fallen over the wide city of London.

Over the tops of the buildings and into the mostly empty street came the shouts of confusion and screams of people for blocks around. There must have been a ton of panicked people to be heard where Xander and Willow stood, on the sidewalk beside the pit.

They winced and turned away as bright daylight, suddenly and inexplicably, shined down upon them. More shouts and more sounds of crashes reached their ears as the darkness vanished, along with the clouds. Blue skies stretched overhead.

Through the gaps in the buildings, Xander watched a few more cars ram into each other and the railing on the closest bridge.

He patted his arms and chest. He felt odd, and it took him a minute to realize he felt normal. The sensations he'd experienced in the past few days around the empty pit had disappeared. Weary, he pulled the talisman's leather thong off his neck. Nothing changed. He felt no itching, no sudden bouts of unconsciousness, and no other unpleasantness.

"Something went wrong," said Willow, worried.

The pit was empty. Watcher HQ hadn't reappeared.

"Where is it?" Xander looked behind him, but the rest of the street hadn't altered. "Did it go somewhere else?"

-----

With a shout, Rupert regained consciousness and sat up. He looked around, and for one crazed moment he didn't know where he was.

The smoke was gone. Any trace of Quentin Travers was gone. The upturned candle next to a darker, torched section of rug remained. That was all.

Had he lost his senses? Had he imagined the whole thing? He shook his head. No. It had been all too real.

Unease settled in his stomach. He stood and called, "Quentin?" He received no answer.

He'd failed. He slumped forward and caught his balance on a chair. He could feel the leftover energy he'd borrowed from Xander still inside him. It was enough to get him back. It wasn't enough to move the Council building.

After everything he'd done to get here, after all that happened once he'd arrived, after what he'd been willing to do…he'd still failed. It was impossible. After all the times he'd pulled through, that they'd pulled through, this shouldn't have happened.

He stared around, taking in the high backed chairs, side tables and liquor cabinet. He thought about the weapons, the shelves, walls and cages of them, in the east wing of the building. He thought longingly, mournfully, about the largest collection of mystical tomes in the world. He thought about the bank locations, account numbers and accounting books in the offices in the west wing, locked in safes he didn't have the time or the skill to open. They were lost forever now. This little venture of his had gained them absolutely nothing.

Hubris was a word he'd believed hadn't applied to him in any way that counted. Oh, how wrong he was.

"Damnit!" He kicked the chair. Rage, unlike anything he'd felt in a very long time, overcame him. He ceased thinking. He acted.

He took out his frustration and his shame on the furniture around him. He didn't stop until his shoulders and hands ached from overuse. He rarely lost his temper. Even when he did, he never resulted to violent behavior except for a handful of times. They were more secrets he would take with him when he left this life.

As he assessed the destruction, he remembered why he avoided slipping into that special kind of rage. Two chairs had lost their legs and one table lay in pieces. He found he could remember only snapshots.

No, this place, no matter how much longer he would be there because of Quentin's sacrifice, wouldn't drive him insane. He didn't need to be driven.

With a heavy heart, not relishing the news he'd give the only friends he had who were still alive, he left the sitting room the way it was. He'd go on one last walk through the building. Then he'd go. There was nothing else he could do.

THE END


End file.
